10 things you didn’t know you can do with your HTC One M8

The HTC One M8 is powerful, well-built and an overall great phone. It may very well be the best phones of 2014, but not everyone is taking full advantage of it. These new phones are full of neat features we often miss.

Like many other phones, the HTC One M8 is full of awesome tricks. Sadly, no manual really tells you everything there is to know about a phone. This is why we have put together a list of our very favorite HTC One M8 hidden tricks. You may not know some of these, so keep reading.

Double-tap to wake

This feature was mainly introduced with the LG G2 (at least in a larger scale). Some other manufacturers have started adopting double-tapping to turn on the screen, a feature the HTC One M8 takes advantage of.

Pick up your phone and double-tap on the screen. The display will turn on and you will be able to quickly start using your device. You can also double-tap to turn the screen off, but only from the lock screen. You will have to use the power button once you are in your home screen (or any app).

This can be very convenient when one-handing your smartphone. New devices are larger than some of us would wish, which means buttons can be harder to reach with one hand.

Using the HTC Dot View case

This is still the coolest case I have ever seen, and I certainly hope it’s something HTC incorporates to its future handsets. They call it the Dot View case, and it’s a whole other take on the trending cases that show you information without flipping the case open.

Instead of implementing a “window”, the HTC Dot View case features a set of dots that display the light that comes from the screen below it. I like to describe it as some form of 8-bit view. You can get bits of information, like the time, weather, recent calls and even some notifications.

You even get caller identity. And because it has a capacitive layer, you can interact with it. Swipe one side to answer a call, swipe to the other to hang up. You can even open emails by swiping up from the notification icon, after which you can simply open the cover and the app you opened will be displayed.

The case used to be quite expensive at $50, but the price has gone down since then.

Make your device faster!

The HTC One M8 is super snappy and powerful by default, but you can give it an extra punch if you want. HTC calls it High Performance Mode, and it pretty much speeds up your hardware. This does take a hit on battery life, though, which is to be expected.

It’s also a developer option, but I have found it to be very stable. You can activate High Performance Mode by going to Settings > About > Software information > More. From there, tap on the build number 7 times. This activates developer settings. Now go to Settings > Developer options, and select High Performance Mode.

Get rid of Blinkfeed

Blinkfeed is an awesome news and social aggregator, but it’s definitely not for everyone. I happen to prefer not using it, so one of my first steps would be to remove the Blinkfeed page from my home screens.

This is a very simple process, but many users may have a hard time figuring it out. All you have to do to get rid of Blinkfeed is tap and hold on any empty are in your home screens and select “Manage home screen pages”. After that, just move over to the Blinkfeed page and select “Remove”. Done!

Change the font

The HTC One M8 gives you a quick way to manage your system fonts. I prefer to keep my fonts simple and stock, but if you want to add a different touch to your UI, here is how to do it.

Change font size in SMS app

Reading small texts can be a bit hard in a smartphone. Yes, even in a 5-inch 1080p screen. Thankfully, HTC has made it amazingly easy to edit font sizes in the SMS app. Simply go to your Messages app and select a conversation. Just pinch in or out with two fingers to edit the font size. Yes, it’s that easy!

Hiding apps from your app drawer

We all hate bloatware, right? The dreaded apps can’t be removed and are there taking space. You can root your device and manually get rid of them, but that is a bit of a hassle too. The next best option is to find a launcher that allows you to hide them. Thankfully, the HTC One M8’s stock launcher has that feature included.

All you have to do is open your app drawer, press the three dot button in the top-right corner (settings/menu) and tap on “Hide/unhide apps”. Then simply select the apps you want to hide and tap on “Done”.

Use the HTC One M8 as a TV remote

Your HTC One M8 has an integrated IR blaster. This means you can use it as a remote controller for any device that uses such technology, which includes most electronics. Simply go to your TV application and you can start programming your smartphone to work with your TV, Bluray/DVD player, sound system, etc.

UFocus

Look at the back of your phone. See anything odd? The HTC One M8 is quite an innovative device, with a dual-camera set-up that allows for very unique photo editing features. One of the coolest features is UFocus, which allows you to simulate that bokeh (blurry background) effect people love.

This is possible because the dual-camera setup can measure distance and subject location. Simply open your Gallery app, select an image, tap “Edit”, select “Effects” and then tap on “UFOCUS”. After that, just tap on the area of the image you want in focus.

Change the app drawer grid size

The HTC One M8’s default 3×4 grid size wastes a lot of space. The icons will look far apart from each other, with a lot of background in between. This is not necessarily bad, but it does force you to unnecessarily scroll through more pages when looking for a specific application.

The One M8 has an option to crows apps a bit tighter. Simply open your app drawer, select the three-dot button in the top-right corner and select “Grid size”. Then switch to 4×5 and your grid space will show tighter apps and less pages.

Edgar has been a tech blogger for over 3 years. Gadgets have become his life, so you can be sure he is always writing or sharing his thoughts around here. Unless he is off shooting arrows or on adventures, of course.